The Righteous, The Self Righteous and The Unrighteous Luke 5:27 - 32 T

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Pastor Mike Abendroth Preaches Luke 5:27 - 32 The Righteous, The Self Righteous and The Unrighteous

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I can remember it like yesterday, standing in our hallway at home so I could look in both to the girl's bedroom, my three daughters, and into my son's bedroom.
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We would have our Bible time sometimes during dinner, sometimes during breakfast, or sometimes the hallway
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Bible study. And I would often say to them, children, if you understand this one word, you'll understand
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Christianity. It's the word substitution. If you can grasp that concept, and you can see it in the
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Bible, back in Genesis where God substituted an animal for the sin of Adam and Eve.
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You move forward in the Bible a little bit and you see not just one sin, one animal rather for one sin, but one animal slain for the sins of a family in Passover.
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You keep moving in the Bible and you think there's more substitution, an animal for the sins of a nation,
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Day of Atonement. And then of course you finally get to the New Testament and you see why Jesus is in fact called the
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Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. But this morning we're going to look at another word that if you can understand, you can understand
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Christianity. A simple word that we say all the time, but if you get this word down, you will be able to tell people about Christianity, you'll understand the
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Lord Jesus better, and that you can read your Bible with much more clarity. It's a simple word, it's an easy word, and hopefully you're saying, what is that word?
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That's the idea of the introduction. The word is righteous. The word is righteous.
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What does righteous mean? What does righteousness mean? There are lots of different definitions.
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I'm sorry to say I'm a product of my environment and pop culture. When I think of the word righteous, the first thing that pops in my mind if I'm not thinking biblically is a band in the early 60s, a duo called the
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Righteous Brothers. All the senior citizens just said that. It's 1962, there's about five guys, the paramours, they sing these ballads, and finally it's reduced down to two men singing, and their name got changed because in El Toro Marine Base after the concert, one of the guys said to the two brothers, that's
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Righteous Man, you're Righteous Brothers, man. I thought, oh, great. You think, what do they even sing?
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Well, they sang You've Lost That Loving Feeling, it was a very popular song. But a little inside information, and we'll get to the passage.
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Did you know the Righteous Brothers weren't brothers? And they weren't very righteous. One died of a cocaine overdose.
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So is righteous just the word, oh, that's cool, that's hip, we love what you're doing on stage?
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What does the Bible say about righteousness? Before we look into our passage in Luke chapter five, let me give you a few questions, a series of questions for the introduction to help us work through this topic and this subject, because then it'll help you understand the passage better.
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Question one, what does righteousness mean? And of course, if you're younger, one of the best things you could do if there's a longer word, righteous, righteousness, is you find the root word.
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And so kids, what's the root word of righteous? They're looking at each other.
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It's the word what? Go ahead and say it, you can. Right. That's exactly right, it's the word right.
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What's the opposite of right? Wrong. When you do the right thing, it's a righteous thing.
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When you do the wrong thing, it's a sinful thing. When you obey the law, it's right. And you are doing a righteous action when you obey
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God's law. God is righteous by essence and nature and character, and he wants us to conform to his person, his work.
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And so righteousness means you conform to a standard. You have behavior that's morally and biblically right, not wrong.
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Question two, did you know Jesus was called the righteous? Jesus was called the righteous, and it shouldn't shock us because, of course, his character is right and righteous, but he also, on earth, did he always do the wrong thing, or did he always do the right thing?
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He always did the right thing. And so 1 John 2 calls Jesus Christ the righteous one.
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Question three, did you know what people are called that do the wrong things? That's a bad question.
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What are people that do the wrong things called? Unrighteous.
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So right means doing the right thing, and when you do the wrong thing, you're called unrighteous. Do these people sound like unrighteous people?
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Romans 1, they did not seek to acknowledge God. God gave them up to a debased mind.
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They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, gossips, haughty, inventors of evil, and so on.
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And so righteous means doing the right thing. Jesus always did the right thing. He is the righteous one, and if you don't do right things, you do the wrong things, and we call that unrighteousness, right?
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Right. Question four, what do you call someone who thinks they're not unrighteous?
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Some people don't think they're unrighteous at all, and we're not talking about Christian people. We're talking about people who live their lives and they don't think they do wrong things.
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They don't think they are unrighteous. We call those people what? Self -righteous.
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Because they think they're good enough within themselves, and they usually do it by comparison. Find somebody that's really bad, and now you think you're better than they are.
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So righteousness means doing the right thing, obeying God's law. Jesus, of course, always obeys
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God's law. He's called the righteous one. Unrighteousness means you don't do the right thing, and you need righteousness.
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Self -righteousness, you don't even know you're doing unrighteous things. Question five, did you know
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God can declare people righteous based on the righteous life of Christ? God can in the courtroom of His judgment say, you're not guilty, you're declared righteous because you get credit then for Jesus Christ right doing and law keeping.
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Our own statement of faith says, those whom God effectually calls,
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He also freely justifies. Not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and not accounting and accepting their persons as righteous.
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Not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone.
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God declares people righteous. Final question before Luke five.
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How much unrighteousness is God willing to forgive? How bad must a person be before God just says, you're unforgivable?
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It's a good question. Let's find out. Turn your Bibles to Luke chapter five. Luke chapter five, we are going to look at how much sin or unrighteousness
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Christ is willing to forgive. What are the limits?
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And maybe you're sitting here today, you're not even a Christian, you think, I've sinned too much, I've gone too far, I've committed the unpardonable sin, and I could never be forgiven for what
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I've done. Well, let's see what Jesus the righteous does with those who are unrighteous and those who are self -righteous.
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I think the title of the sermon is Jesus the Righteous, comma, unrighteousness, and self -righteousness.
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Luke is a gospel, and gospel means good news. And so the good news of Luke's gospel tells us not only what
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Jesus does at death as a substitute for us when we sing nothing but the blood of Jesus, we're not talking about blood blood, we're talking about blood that symbolizes and is like a substitute word for sacrificial death.
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And of course, Jesus dies on the cross for sinners in Luke. But what's Jesus like on the way to the cross?
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What's his person like? What is his essence like? And that's been chapters 1 through 5 for us so far, and we come to the section today,
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Luke 5, 27 through 32. Still in this section that God is sovereign,
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Jesus rules, that he has authority, that he's compassionate, that Mark, Matthew, and Luke all talk about.
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You say, well, I'm reading this, and I read how Jesus cleanses a leper. Is there something more than the story of that?
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I read about how Jesus heals a paralytic and makes his sins forgiven. Is there more to the story than that? I read today,
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Jesus calls Levi. Is there more to the story than that? Of course there is, because as you're reading this, remember
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Luke 1, 4, God through Luke wants you to say, that's my Lord, that's my
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Savior, I know who he is. And so really, one of the purposes of the sermon of Luke and every sermon in Luke is that you would be impressed with Jesus, you would appreciate that Jesus is a good
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Savior, and that he's my Savior. One of the things I love about Bethlehem Bible Church is when we have the all -men's choir, it seems like 95 % of the congregation is male.
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I mean, there's no room for everybody up here. I know it's not 95, but it just seems like it. How do you get men to follow
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Jesus? That's a good question. If you proclaim a Jesus who's a great
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King, who's sovereign, who has authority, who bestows good gifts on his people, who provides and protects, even the knights of the round table will lay down their lives for a good
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King Arthur. And so when you show Jesus as a prophet who proclaims, and a priest who intercedes and dies for, and Jesus as King, men and women, of course, and children would say,
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I would worship that King. I would bow down before that King. If you walked in the room today, literally
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I would get down on my face before that man, the God -man. So I think you're going to see a little taste this morning of Jesus in Luke 5, 27 -32, to remind you who your
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Savior is, and if you're not a Christian, who the Savior is. Simple outline today, four facts about righteousness designed for you to appreciate
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Jesus more. Four facts about righteousness that is designed to help you appreciate
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Jesus more. No imperatives in my outline, no to -do's in my outline, in the sermon there will be some to -do's, but here
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I just want you to see who Jesus is, because that's what Luke wants you to do. He wants you to see, that's who Jesus is.
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I'm reminded to not separate Jesus' person from his work, because he, the person, is the one from whom all those blessings flow.
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Fact number one about righteousness, to help you appreciate Jesus, is that Jesus the righteous calls unrighteous sinners.
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Jesus the righteous calls unrighteous sinners, verses 27 -28. I've been waiting to preach this all week, because it's just amazing to watch what
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Jesus does and how he does it. Verse 27 of Luke 5, after this, he went out and saw a tax collector named
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Levi, sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, follow me.
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I mean it's one thing to heal a paralytic, I mean you kind of feel sorry for the guy in the last section, he's a paralytic, and you can sense, oh
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Jesus of course would be kind to him, but how about somebody who is vile, worthless, awful in the sight of, not just God himself, but humanity.
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Does God receive sinners? Does Jesus fellowship with vile, wicked people?
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That's really what Luke is after. Right before our very eyes, how does
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Jesus deal with a low life, shady character, I'm trying to think of other words,
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I want to say scumbag, but that's right, scallywag, awful person.
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Is there a limit to forgiveness? Is there a limit to what Jesus would do for someone? Can someone be so bad that they're untouchable?
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It's one thing to be a leper physically, it's another thing to be a leper spiritually, and that's exactly what tax collectors were.
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I mean Jesus has authority to forgive sins of the paralytic, but does he have authority and compassion to forgive sins of the vile tax collector?
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Is there a limit to forgiveness? Now Mark gives us some information, it says, he went out again by the seashore, that is
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Jesus, and all the multitudes were coming to him and he was teaching them. And so Jesus again focused on the teaching, proclaiming good news,
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Luke chapter 4, glad tidings, forgiveness, restoration, the Messiah has come, and Jesus is regularly teaching and preaching, and the people kept coming to him over and over and over, the original language is showing just this constant barrage of people.
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And the side note for us is, as I think about this, when it comes to any great movement of God in saving people, there's going to be preaching.
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What was the key thing at Pentecost, 3 ,000 people getting saved? It wasn't signs and wonders, it was the proclamation of God's grace.
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And where there's some kind of big activity and revivalistic kind of thing, when there's no preaching, it's not really preaching, it's not really a revival, it's more like Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
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A tax collector, see it again in verse 27, a tax collector named Levi. I mean, we just think of tax collectors, you know, if I met somebody, who do you work for, and they say the
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IRS, I'd be thinking, oh brother. But if you met somebody who was a tax collector back in those days, you wouldn't be thinking, oh brother.
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You know what you'd be thinking? You'd be thinking like people in France and in Poland, who when the
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Nazis invaded those countries, and some of the ladies slept with the enemies, they were taken and having all their hair cut off, and put markings on their forehead, because they were repulsive to the locals.
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You'd be thinking, I loathe this person. And what does Jesus do?
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He sees a tax collector. I'm not into word study preaching, but it is very fascinating.
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This is Jesus looking intently. This is Jesus finding this man, and focusing in on him.
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The word is where we get the word theater, and if you go to a theater, you pay attention. If the theater is about Agatha Christie, you're paying attention, because you want to make sure you figure out who's the murderer on the
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Orient Express. You're watching intently, you're looking at the Broadway play, so you don't miss anything.
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That's the idea, and Jesus is looking, because it's a sovereign look. He's finding this man, he knows who this man is.
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He's a hated man. And yet, we have Jesus with this sovereign gaze, because this whole section in chapter five is about God's authority in his son,
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Christ Jesus. And here, this man, Levi, is sitting at the tax booth. Mark gives us a little more information.
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He's at the perfect spot to make taxes come alive, because everybody's got to pass through Galilee in this particular caravan route.
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And here, this man, Levi, he's in charge. They set up high on these kind of platforms, making sure everyone sees, pay the tax man.
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But I want to know who's really in charge in this situation. Is it the tax man, high, lifted, exalted?
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If you're a Roman, you put up with a tax person, but if you're a Jew, you hated these people. And every time you paid the tax man, you'd be thinking,
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Rome's in charge, Israel's lost her blessings from God, and these people are over us, they're traitors.
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And what you would do is, if you were a tax collector, you would buy a franchise. Bruce Bolivar is a member here, and he's owned several
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McDonald's franchises over the years. Matter of fact, for the first maybe five years of my tenure here at Bethlehem Bible Church, whenever we had a men's breakfast, we always had
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McDonald's egg McMuffins, as many as you could eat. It was kind of fun back in the 90s.
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You're going to buy the franchise to tax, and by the way, you can make up taxes. Kind of sounds like the government today, but that's another story.
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And then, if they can't pay the tax that you made up, they would loan you money at 40%, 50%, 60%.
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I mean, these people were horrible. They could tax on bridges, roads, imports, exports to us.
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They exploited, they were extortionists, they were robbers, they were murderers. You would regularly say, tax collectors and prostitutes in the same sentence.
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Al is right. It's like Jesus walks up modern day, and he sees the
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Hamas terrorist, and he sees sex traffickers, and he says,
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I want you to follow me, except he doesn't say, I want you to. He says, follow me. After this, he saw a tax collector, and he said to him, follow me.
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Not a word from Levi. He just picks everything up. No, he leaves everything.
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He rose and followed him. This is the divine call. This is what we call in theological circles, the effectual call.
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When God the sovereign says, you're mine, you respond with, I follow you. Did he believe?
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Of course, he believed. We just have shorthand. He just left everything. Of course, he believes the word of Christ. I'm sure he's heard about Jesus, and now he follows
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Jesus. Unlike the rich young ruler who left because he was sad because he had lots of things, this man had lots of things.
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He was rich, but he loses everything and leaves it. How hard would it get to be, it's easy for me to talk sometimes, sometimes it's not.
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How hard would it be to get another job if you're a tax collector? I mean,
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Peter, James, and John, they could go back to fishing, but it would be very, very difficult for this man. Following Jesus, it's over.
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Leaves everything and follows Jesus. Reminds me of Paul, whatever things were gained to me, these
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I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing
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Christ Jesus, my Lord, from whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain
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Christ. Jesus is saving a dirty, rotten, filthy sinner, despised and wicked, some drug addict, some repeated felon, and this man responds and he rises and follows
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Jesus. I think it'd be fair to just stop right there for a second. The more
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I think about how wicked that tax collector is, the more I begin to rehearse my own salvation. And if you're a
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Christian, you can think through, oh, I'm on my merry old way in life.
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Many of you can probably have my exact same testimony. I'm on my merry old way, I'm in Nebraska, I think, let's move to California.
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Seems like there's much more opportunities to sin there, more fun sin than in Nebraska. I didn't think it that way, but that's certainly the way it was.
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And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, 1988, father diagnosed with cancer, my whole world blows up, and then what?
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And Jesus, of course, is the sovereign one, so he chooses his bride, and to show how great he is, 1
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Corinthians 1, he doesn't go after many who are mighty and noble and rich and famous and wonderful, he goes after tax collectors and he goes after the unrighteous like me.
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And he says, you're mine. Does that sound like your testimony? That's exactly what he did, through different circumstances, maybe through parents, maybe through this, maybe through that, but you realize you come to the end of yourself and say,
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I'm a sinner, and I know judgment day is perfect righteousness needed, always obeying
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God needed, and I will never stand up to God's judgment on that day, I need help, I need a savior.
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And you begin to reflect on this and you think, man, that makes me love the Lord Jesus all the more. When you watch firemen rush into a burning building and bring children out, you just go, yes, that is the best.
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They're saving people, they're rescuing people, even over this last weekend, the
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Israeli troops come in and rescue four hostages held by the terrorists, and you say, they rescued, and one man at the cost of his own life.
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God shows us our sin, He shows us the sinlessness of Jesus, and He grants us faith, and we respond with faith, and then as Christians we say, oh, follow you.
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Jesus perfectly obeys, that's called doing the right thing, or earning righteousness, not for Himself, but for others, and it's credited to our account, by faith in faith alone.
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And then Jesus pays for our unrighteousness. Of course, you know the verses in Romans chapter 4, now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
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And to the one who does not work, Levi, me, you, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, credited as righteous, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom
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God counts righteousness apart from works. If you're a Christian, let me give you a great promise, and truth, blessed are you whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
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Blessed are you against whom the
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Lord will not count his sin, or her sin. So if you're a
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Christian, you realize, yes, like that tax collector, that's me, I might know how to put on a suit, and look good, and know etiquette, and know how to open a door for a lady, but on the inside,
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I'm a sinner, and I need rescue. And if you're an unbeliever here today,
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I want you to know you are not right. My father used to say a lot of things. He used to say things like, they're good people, when he's talking about one person.
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He'd also say things like, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? But if somebody did something wrong, he'd say, that person's not right in the head.
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And every unbeliever's not right in the head, because they've been made to worship God, and to glorify Him, and see Him in creation.
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And to say, that's the only God, and then say, no, I'd rather live my own life of unrighteousness. If you're an unbeliever here, you are unrighteous, and you need perfect righteousness.
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Is there any hope for you? Let's find out. Second fact about righteousness, designed to help you appreciate
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Jesus all the more. Not only does Jesus, the righteous, call unrighteous sinners, but second, redeemed sinners call unrighteous sinners.
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Found in verse 29. Redeemed sinners call unrighteous sinners. Verse 29.
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I would have loved to have been at this party, and Levi made a great feast in his house.
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And there was a large company of tax collectors and others, other accounts say sinners, reclining at table with them.
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When you got saved, what was your response? Your response first was, I can't believe
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I didn't see this a long time ago. Your response was, praise God, I'm saved,
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I'm forgiven, I'm forgiven. What a weight off my back. When I was in New Bedford, England, they have the
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John Bunyan House there. It's a museum that opened up in 2000, and I was there in 2000. And they have some of John Bunyan's belongings there.
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And they have the chair that he sat at in prison for those 12 long years. And he took the leg off the chair and made it into a flute.
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And so when the guards came, he could put that back on. All kinds of things. His pulpit that he preached from.
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But the thing that was most amazing to me is since John Bunyan was a tinker, he fixed pots and pans, and he would go around the neighborhood and fix pots and pans.
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He had a big anvil, about this big. And it was pretty heavy because it was made, you know, it was dense metal.
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And so he would take that anvil door to door and have to hammer on tin pots and pans on that anvil.
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And then when he was done, he put everything in his knapsack and up and over the shoulder, and it got to be heavy walking through the country, going to the next place.
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And so he used that illustration of sinners having the burden on their back, that heavy anvil that finally you just get rid of and put that burden off.
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And you think, I can't believe when God saved me, that burden of my back is off. My sin burden's off.
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That's what you felt. That's what I felt. But I think you felt something else. You couldn't wait to tell other people.
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I mean, you. If there's ever a cage stage of a new Christian, you were it.
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My grandmother Nona received a letter from me when I first got saved. It was 12 pages long to my
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Roman Catholic grandmother, and she said I knew it was about religion when it was 12 pages long. But I was excited.
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If you've received the greatest gift in your entire life, forgiveness. Don't you want to tell other people?
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Not forgiveness at a price, not forgiveness for something that you did, but free. I'm freely forgiven.
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I want to tell other people. What do you think Levi did? He experienced grace and fellowship with God, and he wanted other people to do it as well.
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So he invites all his other horrible friends to this party. It's an evangelism party.
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And I'm sure there's some okay motives and good motives with people selling Mary Kay and selling
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Amway and selling Tupperware. What else do we sell these days? Essential oils or,
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I don't know, Pampered Chef or something. And you get people over, and there's fellowship, and they get a benefit. I get that.
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But this is what you weren't getting at the party. This is what you're giving at the party. He's got the money, and then now it's like I'm going to have this huge party, and Jesus is front and center.
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Matthew says, Behold, many tax collectors and sinners came. They're all there, and there's
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Jesus in the middle of it all. Contaminated by them? Of course not. Lepers don't contaminate
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Jesus when he touches them in compassion. And in compassion, Jesus is there with the worst of the worst, the trash heap people.
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And Levi is so happy. We'll get to this in Luke 16 later, but listen to what
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Jesus said. The Master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.
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For the sons of the world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, here's the point.
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Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth. Did you get that?
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Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
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More about Luke 16 later. But use money as a tool to get people to hear the gospel.
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One of my favorite illustrations of that is found right here in Bethlehem Bible Church. As you know, we don't do child dedications because we want you to dedicate your children to the
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Lord. Yes, Hannah did it, but there's no prescription for New Testament dedications. And so, the
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Rhesus said to me, we'd like to have a baby dedication of our daughter. And I know you don't want to do it in the church service, but let's have it after the church service.
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We'll invite all of our Hindu friends, and we'll bring in the best food from the best
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Indian restaurant, and they can have a feast. And then, Mike, you can get up and preach, and we can talk about dedicating our little daughter to the
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Lord. Using money to have an opportunity to tell people about the gospel.
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That's exactly what Levi's doing here. I saw Wayne this morning. I said, I'm going to use you in my sermon today, but I didn't tell him it was going to be positive.
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So now he can take a deep breath. A big reception of only the worst people.
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Sounds like to me this is fruit of repentance in Matthew's slash Levi's life.
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Let's invite all my criminal friends. Let's invite the mafia over. Let's invite the gross people.
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And let's have a celebration. I mean, if there was a fattened calf around, it would have been killed.
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It's a feast. Mark also helps us regarding the whole feast party thing, because it says they were reclining at table.
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So for us, when we sit down, we just always sit. And whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, or later today, we'll just sit at the table.
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But when you had the big feast, you kind of reclined, and you kind of laid down on your side on these kind of sofas.
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That's what's happening here. I am going to introduce all my old workmates, all my old cronies, all my old traders people to who
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Jesus is. Evangelism party. Probably real hospitality ministry happening right here.
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Tax collectors I talked about. But what else does Luke say? You see it in the text, verse 29, and others.
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Mark says sinners. Now sometimes when you read sinners, and of course you can read it down at the end of verse 30, can you not?
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Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners? Those are the others, sinners. What do you think of when you think of sinner?
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Now most of the time we think, well, we're sinners, everybody's a sinner. That's true. But in the Gospels, here's what sinner means.
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A Gentile who doesn't have Mosaic law, who has no rules, and all they do is sin, sin, sin.
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This is not talking about we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. That's a true verse. But in the Gospels, there are non -Jewish people who just flagrantly defy
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God by sinning. It's like if I met someone and said, one of these people, what do you do for a living?
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They'd say, sin. That's my job description. Now Jesus is eating with the tax collectors and the riffraff and the sinners.
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He's eating with veritable prostitutes and porn makers. I mean, that doesn't really sound like the
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Messiah, or does it? He, Levi, knew what sovereign grace was and the compassion of God.
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Not just getting touched by Jesus as a leper, but spiritually a leper, and Jesus touches, and the response is,
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I want to tell other people. Now the outline doesn't have any imperatives, but I'll give you a question.
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When was the last time, dear Christian, you said to someone, I've got some good news for you, and you preached the Gospel to them?
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I'll tell you what helps me, by the way, when I really, really want to be motivated to evangelize all the more, there's one doctrine in the
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Bible that always helps me do that, and it's the doctrine of hell, because I should be going there.
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But God, who's rich in mercy, and every person you know that's not a Christian is going there, unless they believe.
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So when I study hell, I say to myself, I am so thankful, Lord Jesus, and I want to have that feeling again in my heart when
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I'm Levi, and everybody at work, when I used to work in the medical sales, they're like, something's gone on with this guy, because all he wants to talk about is who
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Jesus is. And I also think every person
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I know in my life, from parent to child to friend, they're going to die and go to hell without a mediator,
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Jesus. And that motivates me to want to evangelize. The person that evangelized you probably had the same motivations, to give
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God glory. Third fact of righteousness, designed to help you appreciate
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Jesus. Self -righteous sinners hate unrighteous sinners and all who associate with them, including
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Jesus. Self -righteous sinners hate unrighteous sinners and those who associate with them, including
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Jesus. So unrighteous sinner is someone like a tax collector and sinner, there's no righteousness, they don't do right, they don't obey
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God's law, they're not under any kind of mosaic system, they could care less. I know you're the creator, I know
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I'm the creation, and I know I'm supposed to obey you, I know Adam was supposed to obey, I don't care about that at all.
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Unrighteous people. But there's also people who are self -righteous, and we've already met them, and they're the
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Pharisees. Verse 30, they don't need righteousness because they think they're good enough.
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They don't need Jesus the righteousness, the righteous, because they think they've got plenty. And they especially despise people that are unrighteous, who aren't like them.
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And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
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He said, well, I thought the Pharisees weren't there at the meal. They weren't, this is after. Just compressed, condensed in a literary fashion,
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Luke has an idea and he's going to preach that idea, he doesn't have to say every detail, the Pharisees show up later.
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You're eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. Remember, the
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Pharisees are investigating, let's see if the leper was really cleansed. Let's see if the paralyzed man actually could walk.
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Let's see if Jesus, wait a second, he's with these kind of people? I thought, by the way, this is what
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Jesus was supposed to do. He is supposed to eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners.
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I mean, I thought Jesus was a friend of sinners. We're soon going to see that, of course, he said at the very end, repent.
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Of course, he's going to preach the gospel and talk about sin and how they need to trust in the Messiah. He's not just condoning their sin, he's not celebrating their sin, but he's with sinners.
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Christians are to be with sinners. Jesus is with sinners. Luke 7 .34,
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they said, he's a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Luke 15, this man receives sinners and eats with them.
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Luke 19, he has gone to be the guest of a man who's a sinner. I mean, if I had any sense,
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I'd write a song, Jesus, friend of sinners. What a friend we have in Jesus might be a good song.
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Friends may fail me, foes assail me, he, my Savior, makes me whole. And remember the
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Pharisees, if you touch the leper, you're defiled. Jesus touches the leper, he's defiled. Instead of the pure, holy
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Jesus touching the leper, and instead of him getting defiled, the leper gets healed. Same thing here with people.
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Why do you eat and drink? That means, why is Jesus eating and drinking? And Jesus is there.
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Jesus hangs out with the dregs. We don't. Here's a rabbinic rule back in the day.
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The disciples of the learned shall not recline at table in the company of the people of soil. That is, people that are rabble, people that are contamination, people that are defiled.
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I've been to places in the world where someone has told me to pack Vicks Vaporub. And I said, why would
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I ever pack Vicks Vaporub? Because then if you go there and the smells are so bad, you just put what you would normally put on your child's chest when they had a cold, you put it up your nose so you only smell
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Vicks Vaporub and not the contaminated, awful sewage. Avoid the repulsive reflex gag.
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We're not talking about a smell of a city. We're talking about these Pharisees think those people are like that.
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And just like in Luke 15, they grumble. You're breaking bread with those people.
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You're fellowshipping with those people. And by the way, the Pharisees were right. They were bad people.
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The Pharisees were on target. These were the worst of the worst. In Hindu culture, these are the lowest caste.
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These are the untouchables. You don't do that. After all, we the
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Pharisees, our name even means separated ones. Jesus isn't doing that.
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You can just hear the Pharisees later in Luke say things like this, God, I thank you that I'm not like the other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
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I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I give, that I get. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying,
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God, be merciful to me, the sinner. What is
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Jesus thinking? How can he be around those people, saving those people, fellowshipping with those people?
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Many unbelievers are just like these Pharisees. They're self -righteous.
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And when you're self -righteous, in other words, you think you do enough good things to outweigh the bad, you don't think you need
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God's grace. You don't think you need his mercy. You don't think you need a Jesus who heals the man with the unclean demon, who cleanses the leper, who says your sins are forgiven.
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You don't think you have any need for him. You basically say, I'm good enough, I will not bow to the grace of God.
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I've got more righteousness than those tax collectors and sinners. R .C.
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Sproul said, like Muslims, we assume that God will judge us on balance. If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, we will arrive safely in heaven.
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But alas, if our evil deeds outweigh our good ones, we will suffer the wrath of God in hell. We, self -righteous, may be marred by sin, but no wise devastated by it.
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We have the ability to balance our sins with our righteousness. And Sproul said, this is the most monstrous lie of all.
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Of course, as Christians, we struggle with self -righteousness too. Luther said, I always have to preach against self -righteousness because we come on Sundays, we come on Mondays, and we think we don't do those gross sins, we don't do those horrible sins, and I don't really need
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Jesus's righteousness because I'm okay today. We, as Christians, look at unbelievers and we think,
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I would never do that. I would never be that low. I would never do the sins that they do or that I see on TV. For all of us, we need a righteousness outside of ourselves.
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We need somebody to obey the law outside of ourselves. John Bunyan, I think he said, by the way, my righteousness is in heaven and has been there for 1700 years.
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Self -righteousness blinds. I mean, you see the
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Father in Luke 15, and we'll get there soon enough. And He's so thankful for the Son's recognition and repentance,
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He kills the fatted calf. And the self -righteous person says, I don't need a fatted calf, and I don't need the
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God of the universe to kill His Son either. Number four, fourth fact about righteousness designed to help you appreciate
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Jesus, is self -righteous sinners have no perceived need of Jesus and why
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He came. They have no perceived need. This is just a follow -up on what I was just saying. We come to verses 31 and 32.
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And Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
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I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. I'm sure
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Dr. Luke loved these words from Jesus. I'm sure he was happy to write these words. Those who are well, only
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Luke uses this word hygienic because he's a doctor and doctors talk like doctors. They also write like doctors.
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Jesus doesn't come to affirm their sin, celebrate their sin, tolerate their sin, but to what?
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He's a doctor. Doctors come to cure. And so of course, He is coming as a physician to cure.
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He doesn't just leave it with, you know, I'm just going to affirm you and I'll never bring this up, but He's coming to heal. Do doctors have to get close to you?
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These days, you've got to be with the people. You've got to touch them. You've got to be among them.
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Of course, Jesus, to heal those people, He has to be among them. And if you Pharisees really, really loved those people, you really, really loved
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God, you would do exactly the same thing. The wickedness of self -righteousness, the lack of compassion of self -righteousness.
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Jesus isn't comrade of evil. He's a doctor. And He's not going to get contaminated by any of these people.
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Unrighteous people, sick people, call the doctor. But if you're really, really sick, but you don't think you are, you don't call the doctor.
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See, in verse 32, I've not come to call the righteous. In other words, people that think they're righteous, they don't need me, but I'm coming to call the unrighteous, who think they need me, call the sinners to repentance.
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I mean, is anything going to come out of this account that's good? Here's one. We get to hear what the mission statement of Jesus is.
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Something good came out of this. Not the murmuring of the Pharisees, not their attitude, but the doctor comes, and now he says, this is why
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I'm here, to cure you spiritually. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
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I'm here for a rescue mission. I'm here for a Coast Guard rescue mission. I've always thought when
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I heard, okay, someone has fallen overboard on a cruise ship, when they call it recovery mission or rescue mission, what's the difference?
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And how does this apply? Recovery is they're alive, and you're looking for them. Rescue, no, sorry, backwards.
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This is harder than it looks. Recovery is you're looking for the dead bodies.
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Rescue, they're alive. Yes, did Jesus come on a rescue mission? But to use that analogy, it's recovery, because we're dead in trespasses and sins.
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We're the walking dead. It's amazing to think how
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Jesus comes to rescue. It says in Mark 10, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
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He is not saying, you Pharisees, sins are okay. He's saying, this is what
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I've come to do, and I'm calling them to repentance. It's interesting, Luke goes on later to talk about Jesus' love for sinners.
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But Matthew adds something. Here's what Matthew adds to this account. It's not found in Luke. But go and learn what this means,
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Pharisees. I desire compassion and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.
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All the rituals, all the sacrifices are no good unless you have compassion for people. That's what
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Jesus is saying. You Pharisees should have known better. Jesus the righteous calls unrighteous sinners.
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Redeemed sinners call unrighteous sinners. Self -righteous sinners hate unrighteous sinners and those who associate with them.
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And self -righteous sinners have no perceived need of Jesus and why he came. Several takeaways, quickly.
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Number one, Jesus Christ calls the ungodly. For while we were still helpless, at the right time,
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Christ died for the ungodly. No matter how bad you are, Jesus' grace is sufficient for you to save you.
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No matter how bad we were, grace triumphed sin. Number two, do you deliberately associate with the ungodly?
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I mean, for me, I have to try to do this. I'm around church, Bible studies, home groups, Christian bookstores, prayer meetings,
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Iwana. Even the hockey games we go to and the baseball games we go to are like Christian nights, right?
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When are we around unbelievers? Some of us say, well, I only want a doctor who's a Christian, a lawyer who's a
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Christian. I'd rather have a good lawyer and a good doctor. I don't care if they're Christian or not. But it gives me opportunities to preach.
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I've said for a long time, one of the reasons I go to the gym is so I can be around unbelievers. C .T.
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Studd said, some want to live within the sound of a church or a chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.
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Listen here, congregation. Is it possible to love people and hate their sin? We just saw it from Jesus.
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And by the way, as one old author said, you do this very well and so do I. Loving someone in spite of their sin, don't you do that with yourself?
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You know the sin that's in you, but you still like yourself. You live with yourself.
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How could we not be around unbelievers and tell them the good news? How could we not? Number three, you must remember
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God's initiative in salvation. Salvation is from the Lord. Jonas said it's all on God.
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He's the Savior. Even belief is a gift. He has to be the
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Savior if we're the sinful, unrighteous ones. Takeaway number four,
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Jesus' authority to forgive sin. In this passage and earlier, prove that He's the
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God -man and the Messiah. And number five, if you want to be like Jesus in this area, you ought to be merciful and compassionate to sinners and not just condemn them.
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You ought to be merciful and compassionate to sinners and not just condemn them.
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Watching a little less TV would probably help when it comes to news. Okay, I'll give you one more, number six.
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If you're going to evangelize sinners, you have to be with them. You have to be with them.
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Let's go meet some unbelievers. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word. I would pray that you would help me and help this dear congregation.
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Number one, rejoice that we're forgiven people eternally in fellowship with you, the
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Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Forgiveness, justification, sanctification, the hope of glorification, redemption, reconciliation, our sins have been paid for.
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And our hope is built on nothing less than that very thing, Jesus' blood and righteousness. And so help us to love unrighteous people.
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Help us to run from self -righteousness. And help us to keep believing in Jesus, the righteous.